


Love Letter in Dead Languages

by thealexandriaarchives



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: All That Good Stuff With MorMor, Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Apocafic, Bloodplay, Dead Languages, Languages and Linguistics, Last Men on Earth, M/M, Murder, Porn, References to Suicide, Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-17
Updated: 2013-03-17
Packaged: 2017-12-05 10:21:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/721966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thealexandriaarchives/pseuds/thealexandriaarchives
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sebastian guesses the end of the world didn’t really change much. They're still the two most dangerous men in London, that title's just lost some of its prestige.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love Letter in Dead Languages

* * * * *

Keeping Jim entertained on the best days had always been challenging, dangerous, painful, interesting, and for many, a matter of life and death.

In that way, Sebastian guesses the end of the world didn’t really change much.

They’re wading through the wreckage of a Sainsbury’s that’s clearly been picked over before, looking for food and something clean to drink.

More accurately, Sebastian’s tossing dented cans into a sling made out of an Oxford shirt while keeping one eye on the horizon and the other on Jim, who’s doing something intricate and pointless looking with some ash covered cases of plastic picnic silverware.

So far all Seb’s managed to find is a mystery, label-free can he thinks is probably some form of beans, and a perforated can of peaches he wouldn’t trust to eat, but might be useful as bait for hunting birds or dogs or whatever is lower on the scavenging pecking order.

There’s nothing left in central London, they should really head south, see if there’s any bridges across the river still intact. Maybe there’ll be pirates. Should make Jim interested enough to get him to agree to go.

Hearing his name rattle around Sebastian’s skull is clearly enough to get Jim to come crawling over to the remnants of aisle six, hopping like a mountain goat. He’s still wearing a ruined Westwood three piece suit, but the tie is long gone, and Seb finally got him to trade in his tattered leather loafers for a pair of decent trainers.

He’d turned his nose up at them at first, despite the fact they’re a hell of a lot nicer than anything Seb’s still wearing, but handcrafted calfskin and blood soaked silk socks were eventually sacrificed for practicality and comfort. The terrain is rough, running is a fact of life these days, and Jim laid up with a twisted ankle in a world without the internet is something neither of them wants to contend with.

“Whatcha found, Tiger?” comes the drawl over his shoulder, perched on a busted refrigerator stinking of rotten designer ice cream.

“Not a whole lot, Boss.” Seb replies, kicking empty cereal boxes the rats have gotten to first.

“Might have to head down to the South Bank for better luck. All those people hopping ferries for the Exodus probably left a bunch behind for weight restrictions.”

Jim’s nose wrinkles. “Really, Sebby? I already know exactly what we’ll find in their little bags and it’s just so dull to even think about.”

“Might be pirates.”

“…Fine.”

A black plastic miniature of the Eiffel Tower constructed of sporks sits on caved in drywall.

* * * * *

Sebastian suggests robbing the crown jewels again, and making Jim the official ‘King of the Wasteland’. The idea tickles Jim.

Even without power to the security systems or the threat of response teams, it takes most of the day to get them into the vaults. Sebastian has to chuck around half a ton of rubble at one point, Jim caustically playing demolition engineer to prevent the world from collapsing around their heads.

They’re empty anyway.

Jim looks just a bit crestfallen, but not surprised, absently scratching at the beard he absolutely hates.

“They had enough forewarning to move them to the hidden emergency vaults.”

“Where are those?” He doesn’t doubt Jim knows.

A look Sebastian can’t translate passes over Jim’s face.

“Doesn’t matter. Let’s go."

* * * * *

They find a woman under a tarp tent by the Waterloo Bridge. She’d clearly survived a while, the body’s just shy of still being warm. Sebastian breaks her hold on the backpack clutched to her chest while Jim rattles off her life story for practice.

“Just shy of thirty-two, multiple plastic surgeries, a trophy wife whose husband didn’t want to bother taking her with him when he got out. Probably on a boat halfway out to the Atlantic before she realized he wasn’t coming back.”

Her bag’s nearly useless. Photo albums, bricks of cash, a few strands of pearls, and an expensive laptop in a custom case.

Jim snorts. “Stupid bint. As if there’d be a use for that again.”

Sebastian doesn’t mention the thousand pound mobile sitting in Jim’s pocket, less useful than a brick for braining looters or breaking windows.

One did not accuse Jim Moriarty of sentimentalism.

“Looks like she popped too many pills to end it all,” Jim observes. “Wouldn’t have taken too many with her bulimia and the weight of that jacket.”

“Oxycodone,” Sebastian says, pulling a bottle from her pocket. Prescribed by the best tummy-tuck surgeon in the city.

Jim perks up.

“Any left?”

Over half the bottle; she really hadn’t needed many. Probably didn’t even know what she’d done.

“None. Chugged the whole thing.”

“Hmm. Shame.”

Seb pops a few pills in his pocket when Jim’s attention moves on and chucks the rest in the Thames.

* * * * *

More than once Sebastian brings up the subject of leaving London.

There’s food in the rural areas, and living things and people. All those things necessary for survival and sanity.

Maybe they could even catch a boat to France or the Americas. No one knows what’s going on there.

Each time the result is the same. Jim glares at him, says nothing, and disappears for upwards of a week.

When he comes back, Sebastian checks him for damage, tries to figure out what the fuck they’re doing now, and says nothing more on the subject until the next time the food gets dangerously low and Jim’s boredom dangerously high.

* * * * *

Jim insists on going back to the city center after they’ve got enough food for a few weeks, and stashed enough for a month after that.

He disappears for a few hours, but Sebastian isn’t worried yet. Jim disappearing means he’s thought of something to do.

Hopefully nothing too stupid and dangerous.

Well, nothing too stupidly dangerous at least.

He sits at the counter of a Carphone Warehouse and disassembles and cleans all the guns, counts the ammo they’ve got left, tries to figure out what they’re doing next.

Jim swaggers through the door two hours later, dressed in Saville Row’s finest, with new shoes, a shave and haircut to put half the barbers there’d been in London to shame and the smirk he’d always worn when plotting something particularly nasty.

“Ready to go, Tiger?”

Sebastian slings the bag of guns on his back, and follows him out into the street.

For just a few minutes they’re back Before.

They’re still the two most dangerous men in London. That title’s just lost some of its potency.

Seb finds the trainers in the trash can of a Men’s boutique off Piccadilly Square and stuffs them in his bag for the inevitable crash.

* * * * *

 _“What are we doing today?”_ Jim asks in flawless German, sitting up and rolling the kinks out of his neck.

German today. That’s not so bad then.

Jim’s taken up the habit of speaking a different language every day. Sebastian can keep up in German. Even languages where he sounds like a fucking tourist are preferable to the ones where he has no idea what the hell is streaming out of Jim’s mouth. Yesterday had been fuckin’ Swahili or some shit. He wouldn’t put it past Jim to invent entirely new languages to screw with his head.

 _“Raiding the school down the street,”_ he replies in guttural tones.

Jim looks disappointed. Either in the itinerary or Seb’s accent, he can’t tell. A linguist could probably perfectly pinpoint Jim’s accent to a high-end borough in East Berlin.

Well, tough. Old schools still have bomb shelters from the Blitz, most untouched for decades. They might score a medical kit or matches or something useful there.

Rolling up their bedroll, Sebastian stats packing as Jim glares at his three day beard in the busted mirror over the sink.

Jim’s feeling fussy today, then. He’ll try to come up with complicated words Seb won’t know.

Seb’s planning on working in as many basic tourist guidebook phrases as he can all day, just to piss him off a bit.

_“Where do you think we should go for the best representation of the existentialism of our current situation, schatze?”_

_“Which way to the nearest museum?”_

* * * * *

French. Sebastian speaks French.

How the hell do you not with a public school education and as many French tarts as he’s banged over the years?

But he pretends he doesn’t, and pretends Jim doesn’t know he does.

Jim plays along.

Which means he spends the day saying the most obscene, explicit, and downright pornographic things that he can think of in conversational tones.

“We should go check our rain traps on top of the scrapers in the City.”

_“I was thinking about that weekend last May when I tied you to the bed for three days with that vibrating prostate massager up your ass and ginger root up your dick.”_

Seb manages not to curse, and throws their bedrolls in front of him to hide his obviously growing erection.

“Our water supplies are getting low and we’re out of purification tablets.”

_“You were so angry you almost broke a tooth on the ball gag.”_

“I’ve got no idea where we’ll get more, there’s not exactly any untouched army bases around here, Jim.”

Jim’s sex drive has been on a low point since Before, and the fact he’s being a complete little cocktease right now doesn’t mean anything’s changed on that front.

_“I thought you were going to die from dehydration the way you kept leaking from both ends.”_

“We’d better get a move on if we want to be there before dark.”

_“I don’t know which was more delicious, your tears or your pre-come pooling around the cock ring.”_

“Don’t get snippy. I know you don’t want to walk that far, but if you want a drink in the next twenty-four hours that’s what you’ve gotta do.”

* * * * *

It’s been a good day. Jim’s speaking Farsi, so they’ve been holding proper conversations all afternoon.

They’re sitting in the courtyard of the Victoria & Albert, staring at the stars you can now see in the London sky. Jim is clearly enjoying himself, rattling off advanced astrophysics without a pause for translation.

Seb’s just listening, pleased he’s understanding the words and at least 60% of the content, turning a pigeon on an 18th century rapier serving as a spit over a fire pit made out of a god-awful metal piece of modern art.

They’re eating pigeon far too often now, on the days Jim isn’t actually willing to turn his nose up at it. But meat is meat, and they’re thin enough as it is.

Still, it’s depressing. Blowing the heads off pigeons with a high-powered sniper rifle is... well. It’s a bit like setting Jim Moriarty loose in the shelled-out ruins of London.

* * * * *

One of these days Jim’s going to kill him out of sheer need for stimulation.

Seb has always vaguely assumed this to be true, but now he genuinely worries about it.

What will he do without him?

* * * * *

No one outside of the Catholic clergy should be able to shoot off rapid fire Latin the way Jim is now. It's indecent.

He's babbling away at top speed about god-knows-what while Sebastian digs through the least used sections of his memory to try to find his classics courses at Eton.

This is Trafalgar Square, or at least Jim insists it is. Nothing's left standing to differentiate it from any other pile of rubble except the sunken areas of the street and what could be half a lion sticking out of the ground.

Jim's down to a shirt and pants, dress shoes abandoned but the trainers remain stubbornly in Seb's pack, the little psychopath apparently preferring to run barefoot over a world of broken glass and bio-hazard contaminants. 

Whatever. If anyone's left to have mastered that mystic, yogi, fire-walking crap in the world, it'll be Jim. 

Jim's gesturing at the vast, sunny, July sky (free of pigeons at last, who'd have thought he'd miss the little shits), a grin across his tanning face.

_"Speak slower."_

_"Yes ... look ... Idiot."_

Sebastian looks where Jim seems to want him to, which seems to be everywhere. This is clearly a test, but he doesn't get what it's supposed to be. There's no threats, no supplies, no food or shelter, or fragments of oil paintings flapping in the wind from the Ex-National Gallery.

He shrugs after a minute, anticipating the tantrum already.

But it doesn't come. Jim looks pitying. 

_"Look harder."_

No buildings standing above a hundred feet, no newspaper stands or milling tourists. No traffic in the heart of London, no neon or fashion display window fronts. No Starbucks and Pizza Express. No fucking pigeons. _  
_

Sebastian sees it.

_"It's beautiful."_

Jim nods ecstatically and drawls a command.

Oh yes. Sebastian knows that one. Conjugations of the word 'to sodomize' were surprisingly well known at school.

He drops the packs and moves across tangles of rebar and powdered concrete towards his former employer. Jim's settled himself into a lounging position on the highest point of the square and watches him come with casual, royal grace.

The sniper nearly lunges when he gets near because Jim still manages to look good and it's been  _so fucking long..._ but as soon as he does he's nailed in the solar plexus by a surprisingly strong bare foot.

Jim's snarling something at him and it takes him a minute to figure out the roots and seriously, who the fuck else would know the proper Latin word for  _"subjugation"_  except for fucking Moriarty?

But he's grinning again, foot still dangling in front of him, bobbing up and down teasingly, and yeah, yeah, he's got the idea. _  
_

He wraps his hand around the delicate bones of the ankle and bows his head, chapped lips pressing down through the layers of dust and dried sweat and blood from being cut to hell due to sheer obstinacy, to show deference to his emperor.

He gets a lazy nod of acknowledgment, a flourish of the hand to continue, and he  _does_ , ripping apart the torn fabric of the suit leg to continue his demonstration of loyalty up his liege lord's body. The noise of disapproval at his enthusiasm is quickly drowned out after his shirt and other leg disintegrate, and if Jim wants to play anarchist naturalist so badly he can run naked until they find new clothes.

Seb's reveling in the fact that he's got his mouth around Jim's cock for the first time in months, and Jim's just chuckling, still not deigning to move his hands from the dust to touch him, and the challenge in his eyes tells him to get on with it.

There's nothing even resembling lube within half a mile, and for half a minute Sebastian considers slitting his arm open, a blood sacrifice to accompany this act of worship.

But there's no time, and though it's been months it wouldn't be the first time they'd fucked dry, so he just pushes two spit-slicked fingers in and starts to twist, relishing the gasp he manages to pull.

Soon he pulls off of Jim and starts to work his way north again, nipping at still-pale skin and that too-prominent ribcage.

Seb's fumbling with his trousers, and barely manages to shove them down to his ankles before he has himself in hand, rutting furiously for a few seconds before pulling on Jim's hips to pull him down onto his cock.

They both groan as he pushes in, and it's _too tight too fast too much,_ but they don't slow, Jim pushing his hips back determinedly, eyes shutting, hands still flat on his mountain of rubble.

He can still find the right spots, and it isn't long until Jim's head's thrown back and he's babbling in fucking _Latin_ again, collarbone shining with sweat.

Sebastian needs him to shut up, and he leans forward to kiss Jim, to silence him with teeth and tongues and pure force of will, but as soon as he gets close Jim's eyes fly open and his hand moves up to slap Sebastian across the jaw so hard he barely keeps his balance and nearly sends them both toppling down into a pile of sharpened granite.

The blond's right ear is ringing but he can hear Jim giggling over it.

His palms are bleeding from the shattered concrete his weight's now supported on, and Jim's back must be fucking hamburger, but he's laughing harder now, his ankles hooked around Seb's waist and claws digging into his scalp and shoulder, urging him on in pillow talk that hasn't been uttered in millennia.

They're rolling in the ashes of the civilized world, praying to their heathen idols in dead languages in obscene and twisted ways and somehow Sebastian always knew it would come to this. 

He comes with a low moan of  _"Hail Caesar"_ as Jim's overgrown manicure digs through the weakened fabric on his back, laughter echoing off the ruined buildings.

Who knows? They haven't seen anyone for a month. For all they know any language they choose to speak is the only language that isn't dead.

* * * * *

Jim manages to direct them down Baker Street without words one day.

They stand outside the charred flats at 221 and Seb wonders if it would make things better or worse to let Jim dig through the rubble for something to play with.

“ _He’s still here, Sebastian.”_ Jim murmurs quietly. _“He wouldn’t leave and neither will I.”_

Doubtful. The Iceman probably had him forcibly removed along with the crown jewels, knocked out by drugs in his tea from the Good Doctor.

Jim pulls out of his reverie and makes no move towards the rubble, turning away towards the street.

Seb doesn’t remember what language that conversation was in. They’re all starting to blur.

* * * * *

The next day Sebastian is shaken awake on the rotten mattress they’ve commandeered, bedrolls lost weeks ago in an ill-advised warehouse raid.

They’re holed up on the second floor of an old Georgian by Red Lion Square, and he can already hear why Jim woke him.

People.

Not even other raiders, or slavers, or fucking pirates, but ordinary _people._

Three survivors, two women and a man are making their way up the street, breaking car windows to search for anything worth scavenging.

One truck's actually got a car alarm that still works.

Sebastian’s not even fully awake before Jim’s scampered off down the stairs to meet them.

Ten minutes later the shotgun in his smug little Irish mug is lowered and he’s part of the team, showing them to the cache Sebastian had insisted they make last week, despite protest.

The sniper follows from the rooftops, staying out of sight and enjoying seeing Jim in his natural element again.

‘Jim’, or whoever he is right now laughs and jokes with the guy, shows appropriate respect to the woman leading the band of misfits, and strikes up the beginning of a romance with the youngest girl.

Seb watches, smiles, and wonders what language he’s speaking with them.

Jim spends three days with them before he remembers he hates normal people and gives Sebastian a signal he hasn’t seen in a lifetime.

He shoots two of them, and leaves the girl for Jim to play with a shattered piece of safety mirror.

She screams for hours and they fuck in the road afterwards, covered in ash and grime and blood, Jim laughing hysterically and Sebastian grunting low curses.

It’s his favorite language.

They’re still the two most dangerous men in London.

* * * * *

Sebastian misses English.

More specifically, he misses Jim’s version of English.

Every once in a while, Jim’s Spanish will get a slight sing-song lilt, or his Welsh will strain the vowels just a bit too much, and Seb will be hit with a wall of nostalgia so strong it physically huts.

English may as well just be another dead language now.

* * * * *

They’ve holed up in the poetry aisle of an alternative bookstore, making a bonfire in what used to be the coffee shop’s garbage can.

Sebastian’s fortifying the doors and windows while Jim takes obscene delight in picking out books that have particularly offended him to feed the flames.

He heads back to the little nest of books Jim’s made in the corner and starts unpacking for the night. No dinner, but being warm is nice enough.

He bumps a display with his pack and a paperback falls on his head.

‘Hamlet: Translated Into Its Original Klingon with Notations in English.’

Really?

Eh, what the hell. It’s probably the last time anyone will ever read a Shakespeare play. It’s somewhat fitting for it to be in a language no one actually speaks.

He settles down next to Jim and starts to read.

He’s flipping around to the big soliloquys when the sound of pure gleeful giggling distracts him.

Jim’s got a pop-up book of Coleridge’s ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner’. Sebastian guesses it’s for kids, but it comes complete with moving flaps for the zombies and glowing demon fish, and Fate and Death playing dice while the Mariner starves.

Moriarty is clearly enchanted, pulling the lever to make the various creepy-crawlies ooze over the madman’s skin.

But then he starts to read, in high, lilting English that Sebastian hasn’t heard in months, making the hairs raise on the back of his neck.

 

_Alone, alone, all, all alone,_

_Alone on a wide wide sea!_

_And never a saint took pity on_

_My soul in agony._

_The many men, so beautiful!_

_And they all dead did lie:_

_And a thousand thousand slimy things_

_Lived on; and so did I._

The recitation descends back into giggling after that, calloused dirty fingers playing over and over with the dusty cardboard mechanisms.

Sebastian doesn’t feel much like reading Shakespeare after that. He sets it down and stares out the window for hours, rifle loaded across his lap.

Who the fuck killed the Albatross?

Jim burns the pop-up book while he’s sleeping and speaks in Klingon for a week.

* * * * *

There’s a second group; much more dangerous, with three burly men and a broken looking woman. Sebastian takes one look at them and says no, but Jim says yes with such determination and clarity that for a moment Sebastian forgets that he’s not supposed to automatically do whatever Jim says without question anymore.

Jim from IT goes down, in a ripped sweater and busted glasses he found in a nightstand while looking for lube, his grown out hair flapping boyishly in his face.

He’s starving, he’s cold, he’ll do anything he needs to pull his weight, please, _please_ won’t they let him join them?

* * * * *

Less than two days later they try to rape Jim at knife-point, and the third one breaks his right wrist before Sebastian can put the bullet through his temple.

Sebastian pulls him into the nearest open building, resisting the urge to kick the fuckers’ corpses as they go.

He makes the best splint he can out of single serving chopsticks and a sheet of metal from a napkin container, and pulls out the pills from the overdose victim at the bridge.

Jim’s eyes widen and he smirks in confirmation of what he already knew. Seb takes the opportunity to yank his bones back into place.

Even in the pain, Jim sticks to Russian. Fair enough, it’s an excellent language for cursing in.

_“Are there any more?”_

“ _No. I threw them in the river.”_

Jim chuckles. _“You know if I really want to go you can’t stop me.”_

Sebastian responds maturely by tying his sling a little tighter than strictly necessary and reveling in the string of expletives.

* * * * *

Jim wants to go to the hospitals to look for meds.

The hospitals were the first places hit in the Panic.

Jim knows that.

But St. Barts is right around the corner.

* * * * *

“You know, Seb,” Jim says suddenly, after two days of complete silence. “This was supposed to be fun.”

Amid all the other reasons that declaration disturbs him, it takes Sebastian hours to realize it had been in Irish-tinted English.

* * * * *

**Author's Note:**

> All quotes from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner' lines 284-291, aka that awesome epic where zombie fish men take over a ship. ...Yeah, POTC was a total rip.
> 
> Reviews keep me sane like Sebastian tries to keep Jim.
> 
> EDIT: HOLY SHIT Everyone needs to check out goingbadly's fantastic fanart for this because it makes me so happy: http://bit.ly/1lEHScq


End file.
